FAITH AND PRACTICE
of
Baltimore Yearly Meeting
of the
Religious Society of Friends
Table of Contents
- Part I Faith
- Part II The Queries
- Part III Practices and Procedures
- Part IV Appendices
- Advices for Clerks
- Suggested Formats for Transfers
- Transfer to Another Meeting
- Acknowledgment of Transfer
- Suggested Formats for Letters and Endorsements
- Sample Letter of Introduction
- Sample Travel Minute
- Sample Endorsement
- Advices on Counseling
- Guidelines for Applications for Membership
- Marriage under the Care of the Monthly Meeting
- Questions for couple applying for Marriage
- Duties of the Clearness Committee
- Duties of the Oversight Committee
- The Form of the Marriage Certificate
- Procurement of the Marriage Certificate
- The Customary Events at a Quaker Wedding
- A Establishing a Preparative Meeting
- Sample Minute to Establish a Preparative Meeting
- Membership
- Finance and Property
- Business, Officers, and Committees
- Queries for Preparative Meetings
- Advices on Estates and Bequests
- Advice to Individual Friends
- Advice to Monthly Meetings
- Yearly Meeting Policy
- Planning a Memorial Meeting
- The Memorial Meeting
- Practical Considerations
Part IV:
Appendices
A.
Advices for Clerks1
You, as clerk, are the Meeting's
servant, not its master. The Meeting is likely to repose great trust in you and will usually help you cheerfully if you
find yourself at a loss.
You, in turn, can help the Meeting. Your attitude may help set the pattern
of worshipful listening which should characterize our meetings for business. If
all should come with heart and mind prepared, how much more the clerk?
Do not leave preparation to the last minute. A clerk who comes with
facts checked out in advance may help the Meeting avoid fruitless and
time-wasting speculation. Consultation with the recording
clerk and preparation in advance of draft minutes covering routine and factual items of the proposed agenda can
save time.
When introducing business try to provide a brief but sufficient outline
of needed background to set the Meeting purposefully on its course. While you
may need to advise the Meeting on procedure or to make an occasional
suggestion, your main task is to discern the Meeting's united mind. This is harder to do if
you also try to participate in the discussion. You may find that the discipline
of detachment leads to a new and deeper relationship with your fellow members.
If you are deeply involved in a decision to be reached, the Meeting should
be invited to ask another Friend to act as clerk for the occasion.
Though decisions should not normally be made on the strength of
numbers, there are mundane matters such as the date or time of a meeting on which
the convenience of the greatest number should prevail.
The weightiest Friend is not necessarily
weighty in all matters: seek to assess the value of individual contributions. Do not forget that the silence of some
is often of greater significance than the speech of others.
When strong division of opinion seems to threaten the worshipful basis
of the business meeting, a period of silent and
prayerful waiting on the will of God may have a calming and unifying effect.
In matters where the wording of the
minute is especially important, do not be afraid to ask the Meeting to wait while the minute is prepared. In some cases
you may need to have time for reflection or consultation and to bring in a minute
after an interval in the meeting. Make sure that each minute covers all required
points in a decision with a view to the possible need to consult it in future. All
minutes, except on the most routine matters, should be written out in full and
presented before the close of the meeting for
business during which the matters were considered. (In the case of
Quarterly or Yearly Meeting sessions which are adjourned from time to time over a day or a few days, minutes covering all but
the most important issues may be read at the start of the next session, but all
should be approved before final adjournment of the sessions.)
When a Friend from outside comes to your Meeting to speak by invitation
or under concern, try to ensure that the agenda is arranged to allow adequate
time for the matter when the Meeting is not fatigued or overburdened with
other business.
Your office gives you some authority to act or speak for the Meeting.
Beware of exceeding your authority. Use discretion and consult Friends
of experience in deciding which matters may conveniently be handled by
yourself and which need reference to the Meeting.
In the meeting for business deal courteously but firmly with those who
speak too long or stray from the point. It is well to permit no side discussion but to
insist that all who wish to speak address the clerk. The proper exercise of the
clerk's authority is of great service to the Meeting's smooth handling of its business.
Try to keep a sense of proportion and a sense of humor. Do not be
overly brisk or allow the meeting to drag. Be alert to those who need encouragement
to speak.
Think affectionately between meetings of the needs of the
community which has appointed you and how they can best be met. Ask God's
guidance continually in the performance of your task.
B. Suggested Formats for Transfers
1. Transfer to Another Meeting
In transferring a membership to another Meeting, a Monthly
Meeting may use a letter or a standard form with blanks, which may be called a Certificate
of Transfer or Certificate of Removal. Wording may vary, but it is suggested
that all of the information contained in the suggested format below be included.
The letter or form should be on the letterhead of the Meeting, if available, and
should contain a full mailing address for reply.
(Date)
(Name of receiving Meeting)
(Address)
Dear Friends:
At our Monthly Meeting held on (date), we approved the request of
the following full member(s) in good standing of our Meeting for transfer
of membership to your Monthly Meeting:
(full name or names)
[This request for transfer also includes the following child(ren) of the
full member(s) who is/are (a) junior (associate) member(s) of our Meeting:
(full name or names)]
We commend him/her/them to your loving care. We enclose the
appropriate Recorder's information for your records.
We would appreciate receiving your acknowledgment of this request
and notice of your action upon it.
On behalf of (name of Meeting),
(Signature)
(Typed or printed name of signer)
Clerk (Recording Clerk/Corresponding
Clerk/Recorder)
2. Acknowledgment of Transfer
When the transfer is approved by the receiving
Meeting, the Meeting requesting the transfer should be promptly notified. The member(s) remain(s)
on the rolls of the requesting Meeting until the transfer is completed. The
following format may be used:
(Date)
(Name of receiving Meeting)
(Address)
Dear Friends:
In accordance with your request, the following was/were accepted as (a)
full member(s) of our Monthly Meeting by transfer from your Meeting on (date):
(full name or names)
[Also accepted at that time as (a) junior (associate) member(s) was/ were
the following child(ren) of the full member(s):
(full name or names)]
On behalf of (name of Meeting),
(Signature)
(Typed or printed name of signer)
Clerk (Recording Clerk/ Corresponding
Clerk/Recorder)
C. Suggested Formats for Letters of Introduction,
Travel Minutes and Endorsements
The Monthly Meeting should make appropriate alterations to fit
individual situations.
1. Sample Letter of Introduction
Meeting Letterhead and Date
Dear Friends,
Please welcome __________ as he/she
travels among you. __________ is a member of our Meeting in good standing. We send you our loving greetings,
and commend _________ to your loving care during his/her journey.
In peace,
Clerk
2. Sample Travel Minute
Meeting Letterhead and Date
Dear Friends,
_________, a beloved member of this Meeting, has opened to us his/her
leading to travel among [New England's] Meetings [Insert brief indication
of concern]. He/she anticipates that _________, a member of ________ Meeting, will
join him/her and that they will travel in this
ministry between ___ and ___, 20__.
This Meeting unites with ________'s leading. We trust that you will benefit
as we have from sharing his/her insights and quiet
faith. We commend him/her/them to your care and hospitality.
Approved and minuted at our meeting for business held ___, 20__.
_______, Clerk
3. Sample Endorsement
Dear Friends,
__________ was present with us during meeting for [worship,
business] today. His/her ministry here was appreciated. We are holding him/ her in the
Light as he/she continues this journey.
Date ________ ____________ Clerk, _________ Monthly Meeting
D. Advices on Counseling2
In helping one another, Friends can be instruments of the
all-encompassing love of God. All Friends should help one another as they are able, but
particular responsibility for care and counseling lies with Overseers. This
committee should choose counselors fitted for particular needs from among themselves
and other qualified persons in the Meeting. Qualifications of a good
counselor include approachability, warmth, sympathy, spiritual insight without
doctrinaire assumptions, ability to listen without judgment, ability to keep confidences,
and practical resourcefulness. The following suggestions are made as guidelines
for those entrusted with counseling:
- Overseers should come to know the families and individuals in
the Meeting. The Meeting should have a program of systematic visitation
in which the Overseers and the Ministry and
Counsel Committee cooperate. Information concerning particular needs should be passed
to the Clerk of Overseers. The Meeting may arrange for a definite time
and place in which persons may confer with an appointed counselor.
- One or at most two persons should be assigned to counsel in a
given situation, and other members of Overseers should leave the matter
to them in order to avoid members being played off one against
another. One need not have faced the same problems to be helpful; having
faced a problem does not make one an authority on it. Each situation is new
and the counselor can learn with the member(s) seeking help.
Everything said should be held in confidence.
- Listening is a key part of the process. To listen helpfully and
creatively involves unswerving faith in the person, patience, a desire to
understand, and avoidance of giving advice.
- Decisions: The counselor may suggest new ways of looking at
the situation and possible solutions which may appeal to the
person(s) needing help, but decision should be left to the principal(s). Catering
to wishes which do not answer the basic problem is no
solution and should be avoided. Growth, independence, standing on one's own feet, are to
be encouraged. Emotional support in a hard decision can be most helpful.
- A problem may be too serious for the Meeting to handle, in which
case outside help should be sought. A professional opinion may give
needed guidance. Members of Overseers need to have knowledge of
resources in a wider community for counseling assistance, such as clinics,
family and social services, physicians, psychiatrists. Baltimore Yearly
Meeting has a panel of professional counselors, who are
Friends, available for such assistance. The names may be secured from the Yearly
Meeting office.
- The Meeting may be helpful at the same time that professional help
is required. It may help in practical ways, such as child care,
meals, transportation, temporary housing, companionship. Standing
by, listening, helping to plan, can be of great assistance in a critical time.
- The meeting for worship is a basic resource. Through corporate
worship the strength and power of God's Love may be opened up in a way
that reaches to the hidden depth of our personal problems. In worship,
all seek to grow in spiritual and emotional maturity and in understanding
of our common human weaknesses and our common recourse to
Divine Love. As members of the Ministry and
Counsel Committee are concerned to nurture and strengthen the meeting for worship, they
are expressing also their concern for the welfare of the members.
- Membership and personal problems: Persons are sometimes drawn
to the Meeting because it promises help in personal problems, and
such help is a proper function of the Meeting. A Meeting, however, should
be aware that a person's difficulties may be deeper than the
Meeting's resources for help. The Meeting should not seem to offer solutions or
aid beyond its powers. Acceptance of membership by a Meeting should
be considered on its own grounds, not as a presumed solution to a
personal problem.
- The nature of the emotional life: We all have positive and
negative feelings about ourselves, about life, about one another. We need to
face and accept these feelings in others and in ourselves and
to see them in the light of the Love which transcends our human limitations. Friends
who undertake to give counseling should not be deterred from accepting
this responsibility because of their own human weaknesses. They will make
mistakes; their insight and understanding will be defective. They
must be willing and able to accept criticism and hurt with humility
and without retaliation. This is part of their function. They will learn
from their mistakes, from one another, and especially from the people
they are called upon to help.
- Young Friends: Parents are often unable to communicate
effectively with their own adolescent children at the time in which they
are detaching themselves from home and parental ties. Thus
questions concerning basic truths and values may go unanswered during a
period when they are of great importance. Young
Friends are likely to broach such questions most freely in their own
meetings and discussions. Overseers may be able to find persons who relate readily to
young people whether through participation in their meetings or
through personal conversations. The time of decision about adult
membership in the Meeting offers an opportunity for communicating on a
meaningful level with a young person.
E. Guidelines for Considering Applications for
Membership
To reach clearness together about the rightness of
membership for the applicant, the committee and the applicant should discuss all the issues in
a deliberate fashion. The committee should:
- Ask about the spiritual journey of the applicant and listen attentively
and prayerfully to the applicant's response. Does the applicant seem to
be genuinely led by the Holy Spirit in seeking membership and willing
to respond to Divine guidance in making other decisions?
- Inquire as to the applicant's understanding of
Quaker history and experience.
- Inquire whether the applicant finds harmony with Quaker
testimonies and with the Meeting's expressions of these testimonies. The
committee might also inquire how the applicant sees his or her life,
including vocational choices and other associations, being affected by
these testimonies.
- Consider whether the applicant is involved in the life of the Meeting
and whether the applicant is prepared to make a commitment to the
Meeting community and to the Society of Friends as a whole. Is the
applicant prepared to seek clearness for individual leadings through the Meeting?
- Discuss the applicant's familiarity with Friends' decision
making processes. Has the applicant had opportunity to observe the
Meeting conducting its business in order to understand this aspect of
the Meeting's life?
- Inquire as to other
religious affiliations of the applicant and
discuss whether they are to be terminated or continued.
- Inquire whether anything further is needed to help the applicant
reach clarity about the decision.
F. Marriage under the Care of the Monthly
Meeting
1. Questions to be Considered by the Couple before
Application to the Monthly Meeting for Marriage under
its Care
The covenant of marriage is solemn in its obligation and fundamental in
its social significance. Therefore, the couple considering marriage under the care
of a Friends' Meeting should discuss honestly and frankly with each other
the duties and responsibilities assumed in marriage and in establishing a
home. Questions such as the following may be helpful:
- Have we considered the traditional roles of husband and wife,
our attitudes toward them and toward modern variations, and are we
aware that one can impose a role expectation on another without being
aware of it?
- Do we know each other's habits, likes and dislikes? Are we ready
to make adjustments in our personal living to meet, with kindness
and understanding, areas of possible conflict?
- Do we have the willingness to listen to each other and to seek
openness of communication?
- Have we explored our attitudes and visions for family life including:
- Our attitudes toward sexuality?
- Whether we want children; and if so, how many?
- How we might jointly plan and take responsibility for our
family's growth in size?
- Whether we might consider adoption or foster care?
- Our ideas about the sharing of family responsibilities?
- The availability of family, Meeting and community support?
- How our family might reflect Friends' testimony of
simplicity and concerns for the environment and world population?
- Do we understand and have sympathy for, if not harmony with,
one another's religious convictions?
- How do we feel about each other's economic and cultural background?
How do we react to each other's parents, friends, and relatives? Have
we discussed continuing friendships with members of the opposite
sex following marriage?
- Do we share each other's attitudes on earning, spending and
saving money, and the handling of finances?
- Do we share interests which we can enjoy together? Do we respect
each other's individual interests?
- Have we considered together how we will work to reconcile
inevitable differences? Are we willing to make a strong commitment
to permanence in our marriage?
- Are we secure in the knowledge of the guidance of
God in our lives and in our plans to establish a home?
- Do we know each other well enough to have considered all of the
above questions frankly and openly? If not, should we wait -- six months,
a year -- before proceeding with marriage?
When the couple has seriously considered the above questions
and others arising from them, they may agree to ask the Monthly Meeting
to have oversight of their marriage. The following additional
questions should be considered in planning that step:
- Why are we asking the approval and oversight of the Meeting? Are
we aware that oversight of our marriage by the Meeting involves
a continuing concern for our life together and the values established in
our home? Will we welcome the continuing concern of the Meeting?
- How significant to us are the promises made in the presence of God
and of our family and friends as stated during the meeting for marriage?
2. Duties of Friends Appointed to Determine Clearness for
Marriage
These Friends should meet privately with the couple in a spirit of
loving concern:
- To learn whether both are clear of any other commitment
inconsistent with the intended marriage and to determine how seriously they
have considered the questions in Appendix F-1.
- To give them detailed information concerning the procedures of a
Quaker wedding. This should include:
- discussion of the marriage
certificate, its purpose, wording and procurement (see following Sections 4 and 5); and
- discussion of the wording of the
vows they will exchange, presenting the customary wording:
In the presence of God and of these our Friends, I ___________
take thee ___________ to be my husband/wife, promising with Divine assistance to be unto thee a loving and faithful
wife/husband as long as we both shall live.
- To discuss the specific date of the wedding, as this will be included in
the report to meeting for business.
- To explain the functions of the special committee of oversight for
the marriage with whom the couple will discuss arrangements of
the wedding itself and any reception following.
- To obtain from the couple suggestions of names for the
special committee of oversight for the marriage. There should be no fewer
than four persons, of whom at least half should be members of the
sponsoring Meeting.
- To discuss the legal requirements of the local jurisdiction and to
make sure that they are aware of the need to secure a marriage
license and to meet any other legal requirements in timely fashion.
The clearness committee reports back to the standing
committee that appointed it on the readiness of the couple for marriage, discussing any
problems and any proposed substantive changes in the certificate or
vows. A recommendation is presented to the meeting for
business for approval. Some Monthly Meetings require that the request be held over for a month after the
first presentation of the reporting committee to the business meeting.
3. Duties of the Special Committee of Oversight for the
Marriage
- As soon as appointed, this committee should make clear to the couple
its availability before, during, and after the wedding to help them, and
its responsibility to express the Meeting's continuing care for the
marriage. They should meet with the couple to discuss:
- Who should sit at the head of the meeting to open and close it.
- Whether there will be many non-Friends at the wedding and, if
so, what initial explanation of the meeting for
worship would be appropriate and who should make it.
- Who should read the certificate. (This person need not be a
member of the Meeting or of this committee.)
- The number of attendants and special seating arrangements,
if desired, for families and friends of the couple.
The committee should also determine whether the couple
have complied with the advice of the Friends who earlier
discussed clearness for marriage with them. This includes:
- Review of the requirements, making sure that the marriage
license and wedding certificate have been secured, that needed
signatures can be obtained on the license and that all
legal requirements will be met.
- Confirmation of the wording of the
vows which the couple will repeat and the wording of the certificate.
- The committee will explain to the couple the Quaker regard for
reverence, dignity, and simplicity; request that
photographs not be taken during the meeting for
worship; and express the Meeting's hope that
simplicity will also be observed at any reception held. They will remind the couple
that any meeting held at the meeting house is open for all who wish to
come and worship.
A rehearsal with the entire wedding company present is desirable
and should be planned at the first meeting of the committee with the couple.
Additionally the special
committee of oversight for the marriage will:
- Verify the availability of the meeting
house (if the wedding is to be there) for the times selected for the rehearsal and the wedding.
- Ensure that weights for the certificate, pens with permanent ink,
and a portable table are available and that someone is
appointed to assist those present to sign the certificate after the wedding.
- Check the suitability of proposed decorations,
music, or any arrangements desired by the couple which affect the
basically unprogrammed nature of a Friends' meeting for worship.
- Verify that the person selected to read the certificate has had
an opportunity to see and read it in advance.
- Attend the rehearsal.
- After the wedding the special committee of oversight will:
- Obtain the needed signatures to the marriage license.
- Deliver or mail the license to the proper authorities. If there is a
copy for the Meeting records, deliver it to the Meeting's Recorder.
- Give the certificate to the Meeting's
Recorder who will arrange for a photocopy for the Meeting records. After this is
accomplished, transmit the original certificate to the couple.
- Report to the Monthly
Meeting concerning the accomplishment of the marriage in good order, reverence and
moderation; the legal requirements satisfied and the certificate properly recorded. If
the wife has assumed the name of the husband (or any other
name changes have been effected) these name changes are reported
for entering in the minutes of the Monthly Meeting and into the
Meeting records.
4. The Form of the Marriage Certificate
The form of the certificate shall be substantially as follows:
WHEREAS, A. B. of _____, son of S. B. and M. B. of _____, and D. E. of _____
, daughter of F. E. and S. E. of _____, having declared their intentions
of marriage with each other before __________ Monthly
Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, held at ________, according to the good order used among them,
their proposed marriage was allowed by that Meeting.
Now these are to certify to whom it may concern, that, for
the accomplishment of their intentions, this ___ day of _____ month, in the year
____, they, the said A. B. and D. E., appeared in a public meeting* of the
Religious Society of Friends, held at ; and A. B., taking D. E. by the hand,
did on this solemn occasion, declare that he took her, D. E., to be his
wife, promising with Divine assistance to be unto her a loving and
faithful husband as long as they both should live; and then, in the same
assembly, D. E. did in like manner declare that she took A. B. to be her
husband, promising with Divine assistance to be unto him a loving and faithful wife
as long as they both should live. And moreover, they, the said A. B. and D. E.,
[she, according to the custom of marriage, assuming the surname of
her husband,] did, as a further confirmation thereof, then and there, to
these presents set their hands.
A. B. D. B.
We, whose names are also hereunto subscribed, being present at the
said marriage have, as witnesses thereto, set our hands the day and year
above written.
_________________ _________________ _________________
_________________ _________________ _________________
_________________ _________________ _________________
*When the marriage is accomplished at a private house, instead of
the words "in a public ... Friends, held at __________", write "at a meeting held in
the home of ____________ in the ___________ of __________."
5. Procurement of the Marriage Certificate
A Friends' Marriage Certificate is often prepared by hand by a friend of
the couple or member of the Meeting with calligraphic skills. Alternatively,
a certificate may be ordered from the Friends' Book Store in Philadelphia or
a commercial firm. It is advisable to use sturdy parchment and permanent ink.
A couple wishing a certificate with different wording from the standard
form contained in this appendix should make this known as early as possible to
the clearnessl committee or committee of
oversight. If this committee feels the changes are substantive, they
should be brought to the attention of the appropriate standing committee
of the Monthly Meeting for approval.
6. The Customary Sequence of Events at a Quaker Wedding
Although a meeting for marriage is a meeting for
worship and when held at the meeting house is public, there are elements of "program" to such a
meeting. The usual sequence of events on such occasions (subject to change by consent
of the couple and the special committee of oversight) is as follows:
- If music is desired, it may be played or sung during the period
when Friends are gathering.
- At the hour appointed for the start of the meeting, the special
committee of oversight and the wedding company enter and take their seats.
- After a few moments of settling, the appointed person rises and
briefly explains, for the benefit of non-Friends present, the purpose of
the meeting, its nature as a Quaker meeting for
worship, and the events which will follow.
- The meeting then settles into silent worship. After an
appropriate interval, the couple rise, face each other and join hands. In
sequence, each recites to the other the vows.
- If there are rings, the couple exchange these after their vows. A kiss
is often exchanged at this point.
- The couple resume their seats; the certificate on its table is placed
before them for their signatures.
- The table is moved and the certificate given to the person appointed
to read it. It is read aloud in its entirety, down to and including the
signatures just appended, and returned to the table.
- The meeting settles again into worship, during which those moved
to speak may do so, until the meeting is closed by the person designated.
- The wedding company withdraws, after which all wedding guests
sign the certificate under the supervision of a designated person,
reserving spaces, if desired, for the subsequent signature of the
company, overseers and family.
G. A Suggested Procedure for Establishing a
Preparative Meeting
NOTE: The procedures below apply to those Preparative
Meetings that are established under the care
of a separate Monthly Meeting, not those which are formed as equal parts constituting
one Monthly Meeting. See section III-A-3.
When Friends are ready to establish a Preparative Meeting under the care
of a Monthly Meeting, an ad hoc committee may be established by the
Monthly Meeting to consider details and to bring forward a proposed
Minute to Establish the [] Preparative
Meeting for the consideration of the Monthly
Meeting. This committee should include Friends from both the proposed
Preparative Meeting and the sponsoring Monthly Meeting. It is helpful to have Friends on
the committee experienced with Friends' business procedures.
The committee should consider such matters as the place of meeting
for worship of the new group, what officers and
committees are necessary for the Preparative
Meeting, and what the relationship will be to the Monthly
Meeting regarding finances, membership, marriages,
property, business, and similar concerns. Care in recording and documenting these deliberations is needful,
and these records should be preserved with Monthly
Meeting records.
When the committee has formulated a minute, has presented it to
the Monthly Meeting, and the minute has been approved, the committee is
laid down. Upon approval of the minute by the Monthly
Meeting in session, the Monthly Meeting should name a temporary nominating committee to
seek Friends to serve the new Preparative Meeting as a
Nominating Committee. This Nominating Committee then will seek to fill the positions required by
the Preparative Meeting. Upon approval by the Preparative Meeting, these
names will be recorded by the Monthly Meeting. The new Preparative Meeting is
then in being.
Close liaison between
committees of similar responsibilities from
Preparative and Monthly Meetings will be helpful. A regular report (annual or
semi-annual) should be made by the Preparative Meeting to the Monthly Meeting.
1. Sample Minute to Establish a Preparative Meeting
[Name] Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, held
at [place (city/town, state)], hereby establishes as a Preparative
Meeting under its care the [Name] Preparative Meeting to be held at [place
(city/town, state)].
2. Membership
- Members of [Name] Monthly Meeting who
worship with [Name] Preparative Meeting will retain their
membership in the Monthly Meeting until the Preparative Meeting is established as an
independent Monthly Meeting.
- Persons interested in the
Preparative Meeting, who are now members of other Friends Meetings, should request
transfer of their membership to the Monthly Meeting.
- Persons interested in the Preparative
Meeting who desire membership in the Religious Society of Friends should apply for membership in
the Monthly Meeting. Their applications for membership should initially
be considered by the Preparative Meeting Committee on Ministry
and Oversight and forwarded with its recommendations to the
Committee of Overseers of the Monthly Meeting.
- As members of the Monthly Meeting, members of the
Preparative Meeting are also members of the appropriate
Quarterly Meeting and of Baltimore Yearly Meeting.
3. Finance and Property
- Any real and personal property acquired by the Preparative
Meeting shall be legally held by the Trustees of the Monthly
Meeting. When the Preparative Meeting becomes a Monthly Meeting, title to such
property will be transferred to the Trustees of the new Monthly Meeting.
- The Monthly Meeting is responsible for the financial support of
the activities of the Preparative Meeting. The Preparative Meeting
will prepare an annual budget to be submitted to the Monthly Meeting
for approval. Friends from the Preparative Meeting expect to
contribute funds to meet these expenses. Preparative Meeting Friends also
accept the responsibility to contribute to the Monthly Meeting
budget, including its Baltimore Yearly Meeting apportionment.
- The Monthly Meeting may authorize separate bank accounts for
the Preparative Meeting and may appoint, in consultation with
the Preparative Meeting, an Assistant Treasurer authorized to handle
such accounts. Funds and records should be handled according to
procedures worked out by the Treasurer and the new Assistant Treasurer, with
the approval of the Finance Committees of both the Preparative
and Monthly Meetings.
4. Business, Officers, and Committees
- The Preparative Meeting should hold regularly scheduled
business meetings. The business-handling procedures outlined in
Faith and Practice of Baltimore Yearly
Meeting apply.
- The Preparative Meeting may consider and act on business
which concerns it alone. Copies of minutes of Preparative
Meeting business meetings should be forwarded to the
Clerk of the Monthly Meeting who may ask the Monthly Meeting to consider any of the items.
- The Preparative Meeting may consider other business and may
forward recommendations to the Monthly Meeting.
- The Preparative Meeting should appoint a
Clerk and Assistant (or Recording) Clerk and other
officers as necessary. The Clerk and the Assistant
Treasurer from the Preparative Meeting will be
considered officers of the Monthly Meeting and will serve on the Monthly
Meeting Executive Committee, if there is one.
- Preparative Meeting Friends may be considered for
membership on the standing committees of the Monthly Meeting. The Preparative
Meeting may establish committees, and also may consider Friends from
the Monthly Meeting for membership on its committees.
- Weddings are held under the care of the Monthly
Meeting. Friends from both the Preparative and Monthly Meetings should be appointed to
the clearness committee to meet with Preparative Meeting Friends
seeking marriage under the care of the Meeting.
- Memorial Meetings or other special occasions involving Friends
from the Preparative Meeting should be jointly planned by
committees from the two meetings.
- Careful records of
committee and business meetings of the Preparative Meeting should be maintained with copies of business meeting
minutes forwarded to the Clerk and Recorder of the Monthly Meeting.
H. Queries to Consider in Granting Monthly
Meeting Status to Preparative Meetings
- Is a sense of community present among members and
attenders of the Preparative Meeting? Is spiritual nurturing experienced within it?
- Are meetings for worship and
business held regularly and attended appropriately?
- Is there a core group with the commitment to give permanence to
the Meeting?
- Is contact maintained with organizations in the wider
community of the Religious Society of Friends?
- Is witness for traditional social
testimonies of Friends fostered?
- Does the Preparative Meeting maintain a library of Friends materials?
Does it encourage its members and attenders to grow in the
knowledge of the Society?
- Has the Preparative Meeting established relationships with other
religious groups in its community?
I. Policies and Advices Regarding Estates and
Bequests3
The Yearly Meeting and Monthly
Meetings and affiliated institutions, are grateful for the generosity of spirit which has led to the receipt, over the years,
of many gifts and bequests. Heretofore there has been no systematic guidance
to individual members contemplating bequests, and little in the way of
policy regarding the acceptance and use of money and
property by corporate bodies of Friends. In the light of our actual experience in the administration of trust
funds, and with rapid social change having a major effect on our sense of
priorities among various Quaker concerns, it is timely to adopt appropriate policies
and advices, as clear and comprehensive as possible, as far as our present
insights lead us.
1. Advice to Individual Friends
Individual Friends are advised and encouraged:
- To give careful thought to the making of
wills, to arranging for insurance, and to reasonable provision against the needs of old age
and the possibilities of serious illness, insofar as means will permit.
- To consider with great seriousness their role as stewards of a portion
of the Lord's bounty, not endeavoring to accumulate large material estates.
- To consider wills and estate plans with
children, it being expected that if they have been brought up to be self-reliant and resourceful, they
will not be overly concerned about the amounts they may inherit.
- To consult a suitable person or persons in their Monthly
Meeting, particularly with respect to intended charitable and religious
donations but also with respect to general arrangements. Professional
legal, investment, and accounting advice is often essential and is in
fact usually sought when substantial amounts are involved. But if we are
to be fully aware of our Christian responsibilities,
counseling on more than a purely secular basis is also needed.
- To take into account, in planning donations and
bequests, the spirit and intent of the Yearly
Meeting policies noted below.
2. Advice to Monthly Meetings
Each Monthly Meeting is advised and encouraged:
- To make suitable arrangements for consultation as indicated above.
Responsibility may be entrusted to a standing
committee, or perhaps to one or more well-qualified individuals selected by the
Ministry and Counsel and the Stewardship and
Finance Committees. In the case of a small meeting, or where there are several meetings in an area,
the resources of a group of meetings may be called on.
- To seek to develop a healthy attitude within the Meeting, and
to encourage periodic open discussion, with respect to the
Meeting's property, investments, and financial position generally.
Trustees and other financial officers should seek to be as responsive as
possible, within the limits of legally imposed restrictions, to the
considered judgment of the whole Meeting on matters of policy. Care must
always be taken that the Meeting's paramount role as a mutually
supportive religious fellowship is not weakened by over-much concern for
the custody of property or investments.
- To consider the degree to which it should be and is able to help
members in case of financial emergency, relating this to the primary role of
each family to meet its own needs as far as possible.
3 Yearly Meeting Policy
- Baltimore Yearly Meeting is, and must always strive to be primarily
a religious fellowship whose work and program reflect the living
concerns and the deepest insights of its active members, under Divine
guidance seeking to make responsible decisions in the light of present
conditions and of future needs. In this fellowship, past, present, and
future generations are linked in a continuity of the spirit. The greatest
heritage which any generation can leave to the next is the example of
faithful lives. Causes to which such lives have been devoted should never
be forgotten even though victories have been won or new conditions
have created new priorities.
- Friends who have felt themselves a vital part of the Yearly
Meeting fellowship, or who have supported worthwhile causes as an
expression of Quaker concern, are often moved to donate or
bequeath money or
property to the Yearly Meeting. We express our gratitude for
the generosity of spirit which motivates such action and invite
active consideration of further gifts now and in the future. It is proper for
the donor to be able to feel that a beneficial influence is extended in a
direct and effective way beyond his or her lifetime. But such gifts need to
be made with the full realization that their function is to enable each
current generation of Friends to extend, and to be more effective in, the
Quaker faith and its practical expression.
- To this end the Yearly Meeting
welcomes, and wishes to accept, gifts whose terms are liberating rather than restrictive. Care must be taken
not to allow us, or any future generation, to be dependent on
bequests or on endowment income so as to relieve the current
membership of a vital sense of responsibility for operating expenses, services, and
wider outreach. At the same time attention should not be diverted from
those concerns which are felt to be most central and to have the
highest priority, by the existence of funds irrevocably committed to
specific purposes which are no longer as relevant as when the gift was made.
The following provisions are intended to guide both the
Trustees of the Yearly Meeting, and prospective
donors. They should be especially noted in the making of a
will, since in the case of a living donor the
terms of a gift can be discussed and altered until it is clear that full
agreement has been reached.
- The interests and intentions of a
donor should be expressed in broad terms. A will should contain the fewest possible
legally binding restrictions, with preferences being expressed in terms of guidance.
Detailed preferences as to the administration and use of funds are
likely to be more appropriate for a supplemental
letter than for the will itself.
- Even though the donor's wishes are stated as a matter of
preference rather than as a legally binding restriction, the Yearly Meeting,
in accepting a bequest, feels a moral obligation to comply with
those wishes as far as and as long as it is possible to do so,
consistent with this statement of policy. Not later than 15 years after the receipt of a
bequest the Yearly Meeting wishes to be free to review the uses to which it
is being put, and other relevant conditions. Changes would be made if
they appeared necessary and desirable in the light of this policy.
However, even if a modification were made, this would be done while adhering
as closely as possible to the original intent; for example, from a
narrow preference no longer relevant to a second area of preference.
- Income from endowment funds is now, and for some time is likely
to remain, an important and useful part of the resources available to
the Yearly Meeting. If a preference is indicated in connection with a gift
that the principal is to be invested and only the current income expended, it
is reasonable to expect that this will be done for a number of years to
come. Nevertheless the present members of the Yearly Meeting do not wish
to tie the hands of their successors. It is therefore expected that
in connection with the review mentioned above, a decision might be
made after a period of 15 years that part of the principal of a gift might be
used in addition to income. In like manner any physical
property given to the Yearly Meeting would be subject to examination to determine
whether its continued use as originally designated is compatible with
current program and conditions.
- The Yearly Meeting recognizes that the ways in which capital funds
are invested often have important implications in terms of
Friends' testimonies and concerns. It reaffirms the right to give policy
guidance to the Trustees from time to time in this respect. Taking such
guidance into account, and considering social and moral factors, it is expected
that the Trustees will on the one hand avoid certain types of
investment regardless of the expected rate of monetary return, and will on the
other hand have liberty to make some other investments involving a
somewhat lower monetary return or a greater monetary risk than would
be considered acceptable in a secular organization.
- In American society it has become common for
educational buildings, philanthropic funds, and the like, to carry the name of a
donor or of a person or family being memorialized. The Yearly Meeting hopes
that bequests, while letting such an interest be known, will leave
final decisions to the judgment of the Yearly Meeting.
- With respect to all
endowment funds presently administered by the Yearly Meeting, stipulations which were binding at the time the gift
or bequest was accepted will continue to be honored, unless and until
some serious conflict arises and there needs to be some legal resolution of
a restrictive situation.
- With respect to gifts which are offered to the Yearly Meeting in
the future, during the lifetime and competence of the intended
donor, the Trustees are directed, through an appropriate representative, to
discuss the terms, and to accept the gift when these are in harmony with
this policy of the Yearly Meeting.
- With respect to bequests which are being considered by members
making their wills, it is expected that the Yearly Meeting Trustees will
cooperate with and assist those seeking to serve as consultants referred to in
section 2a and 3c above.
- With respect to bequests which may hereafter be offered to the
Yearly Meeting, the Trustees are authorized to accept those whose terms
are substantially in harmony with this statement of policy. If a bequest
is offered with terms plainly out of harmony with the spirit and intent
of this policy and without special extenuating circumstances, the
Trustees are directed to notify the executor that the bequest cannot be accepted.
- With respect to a bequest which is offered in terms which are not
entirely consistent with this policy, but which the Trustees feel for good
reason ought to be accepted or at least considered by the Yearly Meeting,
they are instructed to draw up an appropriate statement of the
circumstances together with their recommendation and to present the same for action
at the next annual sessions of the Yearly Meeting.
- Every effort shall be made to see that this policy is familiar to
members, and that all possible encouragement and assistance is given to those
who may contemplate making a gift or including a bequest in a will.
- The adoption of policies similar to the above is strongly commended
for the consideration of our constituent meetings and affiliated
institutions.
J. Planning a Memorial Meeting
1. The Memorial Meeting
- An introductory welcome and explanation of
Quaker service is very helpful to those who have not been to a Quaker meeting previously.
What is to be said? Who will say (or read) it? It is particularly helpful
to include information about how to know when the service is over.
- Approximately how long should the service be, and who is to close
the meeting?
- Is there a memorial
minute? Who will read it? And when?
- Is there to be music? Who will arrange or perform it? (Is
special equipment needed?) Should it be at a pre-arranged time or as the
Spirit moves? (Adequate lighting should be assured for anyone needing to
read music.)
- Are there any particular people to be asked to speak? Who will make
the request?
2. Practical Considerations
- How many people might attend? Are facilities adequate? If not, what
can be done or what other location may be used? (Possibilities should
be considered in advance of need as much as possible, particularly
for Meetings which do not have their own meetinghouses.)
- Parking for a large gathering may be a problem. It is helpful to
designate someone (or two or three) to direct people where to park. Reserve a
few spaces near the entrance for those who need this convenience.
- Is child care needed? Who can provide it and where will it be?
- Does the family wish to sit in a particular place? How are the places
to be reserved?
- Are there to be flowers? Who will supply them? Remove? Transport?
Obituaries and death notices may appropriately request donations to
a chosen organization in lieu of flowers.
- Does the family want
casket or ashes present? If so, where should they be placed? How and when will they be placed and removed?
- Will there be a guest book? Who will obtain it? Where will it be
placed? See that a pen is available too.
- Are there to be refreshments afterwards? Who will provide, where
will they be served, and who is responsible for cleaning up?
- Can members of meeting offer hospitality to friends and relatives
from out of town?
- Should someone remain at the home while the family is at the
memorial service? Is there some Meeting member not close to the family
who might do this?
1Adapted from Church
Government of London Yearly Meeting.
2What is the Nature of the Helping
Process? (Suggestions for Counseling, adapted with permission from
The Book of Discipline of Pacific Yearly Meeting, 1965.
3From the Proceedings of Yearly Meeting
1972/3.
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